Date: 5/5/2004
Time: 12:03:40 AM
where we sat dwn too remember jesus y do we kids have to do work so long for dat and let just rest in peace. find the tecnolgy too make just smart and bright i luv u dear god and can cherris u all night!!!!!!!!
Date: 9/21/2004
Time: 4:21:03 PM
This psalm is associated with a terrible period in the history of Israel, the Babylonian exile. Any individual or community with experiences of grief can relate to the sorrow, the weeping, in this lament. More than likely, any who have grieved can also understand the anger expressed in the gruesome image of the final verses. Who can say if those who first sang this song by the rivers of Babylon truly wished such harm on their captors. Certainly, they wished God to know how deep was their suffering and how passionate was their faith.
Date: 9/30/2004
Time: 5:47:44 AM
*Gosh* despite the gruesome end, I'm glad I didn't ignore the Psalm this week ...
First off, I always recall the Don McLean song "Babylon" - I don't think I have a tape of it any more, or I'd play it during the offertory.
Next, both churches in my church (the merged church) are singing the Lord's song in a foreign land - and one of the churches hasn't even left the premises. We might question whether the song we insist on singing really is the Lord's song or is it our own song that mentions the Lord.
Maybe I'm too tempted to get preachy rather than pastoral.
Sally
Date: 9/30/2004
Time: 5:48:28 AM
On second thought, it could go well on World Communion Sunday ... and be a nice change from the "we've got to get going and do ministry in the community" theme I usually give.
Sally
Date: 9/30/2004
Time: 10:16:47 AM
There is a lovely rendition of this in Godspell.
I'm working on a connection with world communion. The mourning and grief reminds us of the grief of Good Friday. Yet the alternate psalm, Lam 3:19-26 is one of hope, "great is thy faithfulness, O Lord" reminding us of the promise of the resurrection.
We are still in exile, "poor wayfaring strangers traveling thru this world of woe," disconnected from our ultimate home and the Lord we love.
shalom, Larry cny
Date: 10/2/2004
Time: 10:21:19 AM
Hmmm... I wonder ... it seems to me there are times when it is especially appropriate to go into a foreign land just to sing the Lord's song. Not in spite of being a foreigner, but especially to become a foreigner. To bring the Lord's song TO the foreign land.
It makes me consider some of the Lord's songs ... those songs that seem to be somehow rooted in our faith, or to which our faith is rooted. "Oh, You Must Have that True Religion," or "Old Time Religion," ... well, what is "Old" time religion? How old is old? the 2nd century? the 1930's?
How can we bring that old time religion into 2004. How can we bring our worship - in a "white' church style, with 20th century Southern white gospel, into a neighborhood with a "black" church milieu and not end up "insisting on our own way." How do we bring what's meaningful to us to people who are different from us without yielding to the temptation to encourage them (whoever the "them" is in our contexts) to become like us?
Sally in GA
Date: 10/12/2004
Time: 10:31:24 AM
Wow this is great. It makes me want to go over to Babylon, nowaday IRAQ, and bash thier infants against rocks. Now I see where George W. Bush gets his ideas from.
-Unhappy Americans